American Conquest Editor - 1 / 12 1. American Conquest Editor Use the from Cossacks known and further extended editor included to create your own maps. 1.1. Editor Interface Firstly you should become accustomed to the interface of the editor you are going to create maps with. In the left part of the screen you will see a bar with a set of buttons (this is called the left toolbar). The upper buttons enable you to switch between various button allows you to editor modes (editing the surface of water, trees etc.). The deactivate any of these modes. If none of the modes is active, you can control units, attack enemies, construct buildings, etc. in the editor the same as you would in the game. In the lower part of the left toolbar are a set of buttons which allow you to access various menus or switch between the editor modes. In the right part of the screen is a bar with a number of coloured rectangles on it (called the right toolbar). This is where information regarding the editor modes is displayed. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Left toolbar Selected mode highlighted by yellow frame Right toolbar Upper scrollbar (defines brush radius in water editing mode) Lower scrollbar (defines coast width in water editing mode) Select nation's colour here Brush radius (indicates the size of the area which will experience changes) Coast width indicator (for water editing mode) Mini-map American Conquest Editor - 2 / 12 Using the F12 key, you can access the Main Menu of the editor, where you can save or load a map, change game settings, or return to the Main Menu of the game. Pressing F11 will let you take a screenshot, which will be saved as screenX.bmp (where X is the screenshot's number; this will increase if you take several screenshots). 1.2. Creating Landscapes Naturally, the first stage of making a map is to create a landscape. Decide where to place mountains, plateaus or hills, and where to have vast seas or rivers winding their way through the scenery. (To make this part easier, you can sketch your future map on paper button in the editor interface. first.) When you have finished this part, click on the This will open a relief generation window where you can add basic landscape elements to your map. Note that left-clicking adds a relief to the map while right-clicking removes it. Clicking on the button will enable you to add hills to your map. These are marked button activates the water editing mode. (Water is marked white on the map. The blue.) The button allows you to apply slopes to the map. Slopes are mostly added to the edges of white areas, as they create a path of ascent for your units to reach a plateau on your map. Slopes are depicted red. Using the upper scrollbar you can change the size of the brush in any of these modes. American Conquest Editor - 3 / 12 You can use the button to add forests. These are represented by green specks on your map. The lower scrollbar enables you to choose how dense you want your forests to be. button changes the height of the hills generated. Point your cursor Clicking on the at a hill and hold down the right mouse button. The white area underneath your cursor will become darker. The darker the colour, the lower the hill. The lower scrollbar in this mode alters the radius of the dark area. The button allows you to undo any changes you have made. Click on Save Bitmap to save images created in this way. To load a previously created image, click on the Load Bitmap button. Click Generate to create a map based on your image. Note: Generating this map will delete all objects previously located on the map. If you do not want to create a map, click the Cancel button. 1.3. Relief Editing Now that the basic landscape elements have been created, it is high time to change the map relief. Using the editor tools, you can create steep mountains or slanting hills, small ravines or fathomless pits. button activates the altitude changing mode. Point your cursor at a map area The you want to change the height of. Press the left mouse button to raise an area or the right button to lower it. Holding down a mouse button and smoothly moving the cursor across the scenery creates a mountain ridge or a ravine. On the panel in the right part of the screen is a scrollbar you can use to change the size of the brush. Another altitude changing mode can be activated by clicking the button. The difference between this and the previous mode is that this one creates an elevation with a flat summit. button activates the area levelling mode. Point your mouse cursor at the map The area you want to level, and press the left mouse button. The whole area under your brush will be transformed into a plain equalling the central point in height. In this mode, you can use the right mouse button to add random irregularities to the landscape. Press the right mouse button to see the area of the map under your brush gradually be covered by small elevations and slopes. The smoothing mode turned on using the button gives the area a more natural appearance. Smoothing allows you to get rid of sharp angles and lessen slopes that are too steep. Point your mouse cursor at an area you want to smooth and left-click. The area under the brush is gradually smoothed. Pressing the right button in this mode creates ledges on mountain slopes. The button activates the relief area editing mode. Left-click on the edge of the area you want to change. A yellow line will expand as you move the mouse cursor away form the place where you clicked. By left-clicking you can encircle the area you want to select with the yellow line. To end the selection of a map area, close the polygon or click with the right mouse button. An action selection menu will appear on the screen: Cubic - Create a slanting hill in the area within the yellow line. You can specify its height in the lower menu string. Squad - Create a steep hill in the area within the yellow line. You can specify its height in the lower menu string. Smooth - Smoothen the area within the yellow line. Road1, Road2, Road3 - Draw one of three types of road along the yellow line. American Conquest Editor - 4 / 12 You can make use of one more handy instrument for relief editing by clicking on the button. A screen showing the altitude map of the area (green - lowlands, yellow-brown hills, brown-grey - mountains) will pop up on the screen. A set of scrollbars allows you to regulate the parameters of the elevations generated: Height of Eminence - the height of the eminence Radius of Eminence - hills' radius Width of Crossing - the length of the slope Number of Jags - the number of ledges Depth of Jags - ledges' length Phase of Jags - the phase of ledges The lower buttons are divided into several groups: American Conquest Editor - 5 / 12 Type of Jag - the type of slope. You can select one of the types of slopes available: - regular - concave - convex - tapering - uneven Pressure Type - the method of surface decline - sharp eminence - smooth - smooth incline - smooth decline Brush ­ select hill type - smooth - with ledges Height - measure altitude of the area under cursor Having made the settings needed, left-click on the changed map area. You will see the colour of the map change under your cursor. Using your cursor like a brush, you can create mountain ranges or oblong hills. Click the Generate button to apply all the changes you have made to the map. You can optimise the map surface using the Smooth Hills button. In this case, the rear boundaries of all mountains and hills will be smoothened to allow faster work with the map in future. Select Cancel if you want to undo all the changes you have made. 1.4. Water Editing If you want to change the generated water surfaces or create new reservoirs manually, you can use the water editing buttons. Clicking on the button activates the water drawing mode. Two scrollbars will appear in the right toolbar. Using the upper one, you can change the size of the brush, while the lower one allows you to adjust the width of the surface line. Left-click to fill the area under your brush with water. Make sure the area you are filling with water is even and not above the zero line to avoid flooding. Click on to remove water. In this mode, the water will be removed from the area under your brush if you left-click with your mouse. Manually created water zones have a somewhat unnatural look due to the absence of sunlight glistening on them. The brightness and size of light spots can be adjusted using the scrollbar in the right toolbar. Left-click on the surface of the water to create a reflection centred on the position your cursor is pointing at. American Conquest Editor - 6 / 12 You can delete glints in the water darkening mode, which is activated by clicking on the button. In this mode, a left-click will delete any water glints under the mouse cursor. You can adjust the size of the area darkened with the scrollbar in the right toolbar. If you need to create reservoirs or rivers with intensive current, you can use the button. You will see lilac grid pop up on the current editing mode. Click on the screen. Each section of the grid allows you to specify the direction of the current. Select one of the sections above the water surface and left-click inside it, at the point you want the water to flow towards. An arrow will appear in the middle of the selected section, pointing in the direction you specified. Clicking with the left mouse button lets you move the arrow in any direction. By right-clicking you can delete the current arrow in the section needed. Note: Currents can be set not only for the sea, but for other water structures as well. 1. Set currents as displayed above. 1.5. Applying Textures Now that you have placed water and eminences, it's time to cover the land with various sorts of territories. Let grass green thrive in valleys, stones cover mountain slopes, and sand lie on the steeps. A realistic set of textures allows you to create the world as you like. Click the button to activate the texture mode. In the lower part of the right toolbar a set of various applicable textures appears. The editor allows you to use a blend of different textures, randomly applied from the set indicated. In order to cover an area with a texture, left-click on the texture you want to use (this frames it). Then left-click on the map area to paint the surface under your brush with the texture selected. With the scrollbar located in the right toolbar you can change the size of the brush. If you want to attain a mix of textures, you can select several by clicking on them while holding down the Ctrl button. Numbers will appear in windows of the corresponding textures. These numbers signify the probability of this texture appearing during the filling process. By clicking on a texture with the left mouse button, you can increase the probability of its appearing. Alternatively, you can use the right mouse button to decrease the probability. Having set the required number of textures, fill the area needed by left-clicking. To preserve your sets of textures, find the special Texture American Conquest Editor - 7 / 12 Set list. If you are considering using the set of textures created again at a later date, select a Texture Set with any number and assign it to your set. You can now always select this set of textures from the list. Selective texturing settings will allow you to quickly fill the required areas with textures. Setting minimal and maximal altitudes enables you to cover all the map areas whose altitude matches the framework set with textures (for instance, mountain peaks), while the other parts of the map will not have this texture applied to them. By setting corners of filling, you can cover slopes and areas alike with certain textures. If you need to fill an area of a complex shape with a texture, hold down the Shift key while you left-click. The cursor will be followed by a line which you must use to encircle the area you want to fill. Clicking with your left mouse button without holding down the Shift key will fill the selected map area. Sometimes elevations can block your view of areas you want to apply textures to. In this makes all the mountains on the map case you can use the flat mode. Clicking on flat, so that you can freely texture the map in the areas that were hard to reach so far. A second click on this button will return the map to its initial appearance. 1. Select a combination of textures. 2. Vast deserts are just a matter of several clicks. 1.6. Applying patterns. To provide the landscapes with photorealistic look after a map has been textured, you can apply patterns to it. To enter the pattern applying mode, press the button. The currently selected pattern is shown on the right tool panel. To select another pattern, use the scroll bar next to the pattern view. By left-clicking on the map you paint the area under the cursor with the selected pattern. Clicking with the right mouse button erases al ...